Budapest: Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo delivered a convincing ‘double top’ to dominate Friday’s two incident-packed practice sessions for this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
At a sunbathed Hungaroring, the beaming Australian reeled off a best lap in one minute and 18.455 seconds to outstrip nearest rival and championship leader Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari by nearly two-tenths of a second.
It was the first time since last year’s Monaco Grand Prix that Ricciardo had topped a free practice session.
Valtteri Bottas was third for Mercedes ahead of Finnish compatriot Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton in the second Mercedes.
Max Verstappen was sixth in the second Red Bull, slightly less than half a second adrift of the pace, ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in a Renault, who was 1.2 seconds down in seventh.
Fernando Alonso was eighth for McLaren ahead of fellow-Spaniard Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso and his McLaren teammate Stoffel Vandoorne.
The opening session in the morning featured one red flagged stoppage and the second session had two with both Pascal Wehrlein of Sauber and luckless Jolyon Palmer of Renault smacking into the barriers.
Wehrlein was unhurt, but required a visit to the circuit medical centre while Palmer, who had damaged his car at the end of the morning session in another accident, was able to walk back to the pits, grim-faced, but unhurt.
Several other drivers including Vettel and Hamilton had spins or ‘wobbles’ during the course of the day as the drivers became accustomed to the demanding, dry and dusty low-grip circuit.
In the morning, Ricciardo was 0.234 seconds quicker than Raikkonen and 0.372 ahead of Hamilton on a Hungaroring circuit that proved slippery despite warm weather conditions.
There is a final practice Saturday ahead of qualifying in the afternoon.
